Beta Readers Group

Beta Readers Group

Is your manuscript ready for the big time?

The Beta Readers Group follows on from the Critique Groups and is a way of getting feedback at a higher level and from a broader range of readers. Unlike the Critique Groups, which have a suggested 5,000 word limit per submission, the BRG is for complete works, no matter how long.

The BRG only accepts pieces that are ready. Typically, this means you've joined a Critique Group and got as much out of them as you feel they can give. Then you submit your completed work to the BRG moderator. He will contact potential readers for your piece. The readers will provide written feedback within a given period (depending on the length of the piece) and there can be a face-to-face wrap-up session if needed.

-- Chris Maden

Information for HKWC Members

What to do

​E-mail your piece to the moderator in MS Word format. The covering e-mail should contain a couple of paragraphs describing what the piece is about. In essence, this is the same cover letter you would send to an agent or publisher.

The moderator will first perform a red and green squiggly line check - if you haven't spell-checked your piece or if it’s riddled with grammatical errors, it will be rejected.

The next stage is discretionary - while it is not the moderator's job to assess on the basis of style, subject matter, etc., sometimes a piece simply hasn't been finished.​Once a piece has been accepted, the moderator will attempt to find readers and will set a deadline for submitting reviews. The moderator will pass the collected reviews to the writer, and arrange a follow-up session if one is requested.​​

The Points System

The BRG operates on a credit basis. Having a piece of your work read depends on its length:​ Short piece: 2 credits Long piece: 5 credits

You earn credits by: Being a member of the HKWC (1 credit / year) Being a member of an active critique group (5 credits / year) Reading a short piece by someone else​ (1 credit per short piece; 2 credits / piece)

​The moderator is the sole judge of whether a piece is long or short.

What to expect

​The normal report will answer four short questions:

“How many copies would you buy, and who for?” This is designed to encompass in a single question all the writer’s concerns about readability, market and the like.

“How long did it take to get into the book?” This is not quite a multiple choice question, but the idea is “A few pages” / “A few chapters” / “I didn’t.”

“How difficult was it to finish the book?” or “Are there points when it was difficult to go on?”

“What is a good section to send to an agent or publisher?”

The final section is more detailed, and more of a book report. Praise is always nice, and of course we'd like to know if there are any bits which were particularly good and why, but we'd also like to know about uneven pacing, aspects of the plot or sections of the narrative that are not credible, characters that are two-dimensional, scenes that are confusing or redundant, and also: writer's tics - repeated words, phrases and sentence patterns that become annoying. We all have them!

If you have any specific questions, you should mention them in the cover e-mail and we’ll bring the readers’ attention to them.​

Why be a Beta Reader?

​Being a Beta Reader is fun; it's a way of improving your own writing by finding what you like and dislike in others’ and expressing that in a concise and polite way. Saying you liked something is not enough – you’ll need to express why you liked it. The same goes for what you dislike. And, if you really cannot finish a piece, it's very useful for a writer to know where you gave up and why.​To join the BRG as a writer or a reader, please email ​critique@hkwriterscircle.com